The Ava Gardner Blogathon – Mogambo (1953)

This is the first of 2 posts dedicated to The Ava Gardner Blogathon being held over at Maddy Loves Her Classic Films.

Tnx Maddy for letting me take part!

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“The only lions I ever want to see again are the two in front of the public library.” – Eloise Y. ‘Honey Bear’ Kelly

Number of Times Seen – 1 (20 Dec 2018)

Brief Synopsis – While in the darkest of Africa, a game hunter must deal with two female civilians that have come to the Dark continent for different reasons.  Things get problematic when both women begin to fall in love with him.

My Take on it – This is a film that I knew absolutely nothing about when I chose to watch it for this bloagthon besides the fact that Ava Gardner was in the cast.

The added bonus of getting Clark Gable and Grace Kelly in this film was a nice surprise.

The storyline of this film is a bit weak and even borders on far fetched, but is helped by this stellar cast.

Gable has great chemistry with both of these actresses and that has much to do with the fact that he is always a great lead actor.

The premise of game hunting and dealing with rural African tribesman is shown in an interesting manner, but something constantly feels missing along teh way since it seems as if the whole point of this film is to show the love triangle between the cast and the way it affects everyone.

This film has soime great location shots that also helps make this a bit more interesting, but there is still much lacking here.

Bottom Line – This film works largely due to the stellar cast despite the fact that the storyline itself is a bit too farfetched. Gable is always a great leading man and he has nice chemistry with both Gardner and Kelly.  The idea of game hunting and rural African tribesmen is shown in an interesting fashion in order to make the triangle love story aspect of story work much better. Great location shots also help make this film a bit more interesting. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – While Ava Gardner was shooting a scene with a baby elephant, the creature pushed her into a mud pool. She screamed for help, but John Ford motioned the crew to keep quiet and keep on filming. The scene proved to be one of the funniest in the movie. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (6/10)

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